Life's a Show
by takeanotherturn
Summary: Everyone thought that Rachel would be the one to be discovered. They all thought that Rachel would be the one to become a star. They were wrong.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Life's a Show  
><strong>Author: <strong>takeanotherturn  
><strong>Rating:<strong> PG-13  
><strong>Length:<strong> 2000+  
><strong>Spoilers:<strong> Up to and including all of season 3.  
><strong>Summary:<strong> Everyone thought that Rachel would be the one to be discovered. They all thought that Rachel would be the one to become a star. They were wrong. 

* * *

><p>Quinn Fabray sighed in disgust and tossed the thick script down onto her coffee table. The plot was contrived, the dialogue stilted and the premise was completely unrealistic; the script was like a Frankenstein monster that created from all the worst parts of every romantic comedy that had been released over the past two years. It was truly awful and that was coming from a girl who'd played the evil cheerleader antagonist in both Bring It On 7: Cheer Camp and Fired Up 2 The Max!<p>

She kept trying to tell her agent that she wasn't funny enough to be comfortable doing comedies but they seemed intent on trying to turn her into the next Reese Witherspoon.

As she laid back into the buttersoft leather of her sofa and let the soothing melody of Radiohead's No Surprises wash over her, Quinn still couldn't believe that this was her life; twenty four years old and on the cusp of superstardom; sometimes she still had to pinch herself.

It had all started her freshman year at Yale. She'd been exiting an audition for the drama department's production of A Streetcar Named Desire when she'd been approached by a man named Martin Slade, who'd asked her if she was interested in being the star of his movie. Making the completely reasonable assumption that he was a pervert trying to lure her into the amateur porn industry, Quinn had bitched him out and continued on her way.

But luckily, Martin had chased after her and explained that he was a former Yale alumni turned director, looking for a girl to star as his leading lady in his first full length film, a straight to dvd horror movie, and that she was exactly what he was looking for. Quinn had eyed him suspiciously and pointed out that he didn't even know if she could act. Martin had laughed and told her that with a face like hers, it didn't really matter. Never one to make an impulsive decision, Quinn had accepted his card and told him that she'd consider it.

That night after she'd returned to her dorm room, Quinn had done her research and discovered that Martin was on the up and up. He'd graduated from Yale three years ago and had since directed numerous music videos along with writing/directing/producing two relatively successful web series. Once she ascertained that the offer was legitimate, the decision to do it was a no-brainer. An all expenses paid trip to Ireland to film for three weeks and they were offering her enough money to pay off nearly all of her student loans, she would have had to have been crazy not to accept. And if there was one thing that Quinn Fabray was not, it was crazy...anymore.

And so at nineteen years old, Quinn Fabray made her film debut in Black Forest; a low budget horror film about a group of American friends who go on a camping holiday in the woods of Ireland and end up being stalked and killed by a mysterious figure. Groundbreaking stuff, right? It's saving grace was the surprise twist near the end that revealed (spoiler alert!) that Quinn's character was the killer. Before going to dvd, where it developed somewhat of a cult following, Black Forest had made the rounds of the horror film festival circuit where it and Quinn had picked up a few minor awards.

After returning to Yale and appearing in a bunch of fairly terrible student films that Quinn prayed would never see the light of day, opportunity knocked once again in the form of Martin Slade. He offered her a lead role in his new webseries, the only draw back was that she'd have to move to LA. After much serious consideration, Quinn decided to go for it, dropped out of Yale and moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full time.

The gamble paid off when one of the executive producers of Martin's webseries decided that she wanted to cast Quinn as the teenage daughter in the new sitcom about a dysfunctional family that she was producing. The show only aired 10 episodes before it was cancelled but Quinn couldn't complain, she had been surprised -and a little bit horrified, if she was being completely honest- that the pilot had even been picked up in the first place.

After that Quinn had done the usual rounds, auditioning for everything, taking every acting job she could land, guest starring on over a dozen shows and eventually the jobs started getting better. By the time she was twenty one, Quinn had decent sized roles in four wide release films and then she got her big break.

Among Us, hailed as the successor to the Twilight saga, was based on a series of books about a teenage alien exiled from his home planet who tried to blend in on Earth by wearing a magical bracelet that concealed his alien form and allowed him to appear human. Quinn, of course, played his human love interest, Sky, who was the ugliest -Hollywood ugly though, which just meant putting Quinn in a mousy brown colored wig and thick framed glasses- and most unpopular girl in the school. Axle Hawke, who's powers included the ability to only see people's inner beauty, sees her as the most beautiful girl in the world -aka Quinn minus the wig and glasses- and they fall madly in love with each other.

It was exactly the kind of crap that teenage girls and desperate housewives alike ate up with a spoon. Sky was written so blandly that it was easy for them to imagine being in her place and that one day their special, gifted, incredibly handsome Axle will come along and fall head over heels in love with them.

The movie was a huge money spinner for the studio. Made on a budget of only thirty million dollars, it grossed over one hundred and ninety million dollars at the domestic box office, plus another two hundred and thirty three million worldwide. The next two movies in the series were automatically greenlit and Among Us' two previously unknown stars were catapulted into the spotlight. To this day, Quinn considered landing that role to be both a blessing and a curse.

_Let's see what they're saying about me today._ Quinn leaned forward and collected her iPad from the table and proceeded to check the Google alerts for her name. She knew it was a terrible habit, her manager had warned her that she would drive herself crazy by constantly worrying about what was being said about her, but she couldn't help herself. She had to know.

She clicked on the top link, a story that had only been posted half an hour ago but had already been picked up by twenty six other gossip blogs.

**Quack's Afternoon Delight!**

_Quinn Fabray and her on-and-off screen love, Jack Cohen, were spotted popping into Void Cafe in Beverly Hills this afternoon for a late lunch but apparently food was the last thing on the lovebirds minds._

_"They were all over each other, she was practically eating his face off," our eyewitness reports. "They didn't care who was watching!" Ah, young love!_

_Fabray and Cohen recently wrapped production on the latest installment of the hugely popular Among Us saga, Revelation, due to hit theaters in late November._

Funny, here was Quinn thinking she'd been at home all day.

This was the part of her job that Quinn hated; all the lies. Coming into the business, Quinn was aware that nothing was as it seemed to be in Hollywood but she had no idea how far it all went. Needless to say, now that she'd peaked behind the veil, Quinn wished she could get back every dime she'd ever spent on a gossip magazine.

In the two years since her and Jack's first public date, Quinn had been engaged several times, pregnant four, had three abortions, one miscarriage and three affairs -with men who simply happened to be within three feet of her when her photo had been taken- and been dumped twice. At least, that's if you believed the word of the Hollywood gossip machine.

She had to admit that some of it could be incredibly hurtful -mainly anything relating to pregnancy rumors, for obvious reasons- but on the whole it was mostly kind of amusing to see what kind of stories they could come up with based around a few pictures and quotes from mysterious 'sources' and unnamed 'close friends', that in reality were from the office of either Quinn or Jack's publicist or just plain made up by the reporters themselves in order to make their fictional stories sound more credible to the gullible public who consumed them.

Now Quinn couldn't believe that people actually bought that crap and still treated the word of gossip reporters word as gospel. She couldn't even begin to count the number of times her mother had called to ask "Quinnie, why didn't you tell me you were engaged/pregnant/dumped?", it didn't matter how many times Quinn told her not believe anything she read.

Quinn lazily browsed the comments that had been left on the 'article'. Several were from Quack fans saying how cute they were together and wishing that there were pictures and one from a user that called themselves Skylar77 -a notorious hater of all things Among Us, especially Jack and Quinn's relationship- who pointed out how tacky and rude it was to put on such a display in public where people were trying to eat. Even though the comment had accumulated 34 thumbs down so far, Quinn couldn't help but agree with Skylar77. Vulgar, over the top public displays of affection were something that she definitely didn't approve of.

Exiting the browser and setting the tablet back down onto the table top, Quinn's eyes fell onto the stack of still unread scripts. If they were anything like the first she'd read, she was going to need a little liquid assistance to get through them.

She clicked a button on the remote that controlled her ridiculously expensive sound system which would activate the speakers that were set up all over the house and got up to head down to the kitchen. Music always helped Quinn feel less alone in the house that was far too big for her.

Quinn wouldn't have minded staying in her old one bedroom apartment but her people had advised her that it looked strange for a young up and coming starlet, who'd just received a six million dollar payday for signing onto the Among Us sequel, to keep living in a shoebox apartment in a not so great neighborhood and that questions would undoubtedly start being asked.

So Quinn had ended up paying a cool 1.1 mil for a four bedroom, two and half bathroom home in the Hollywood Hills. It had a decent sized backyard complete with lap pool and hot tub and it oozed Old Hollywood charm, just like Quinn did. At least, that's what her real estate agent claimed.

The house was beautiful and she did love it but it was clearly designed for more than one person to live in and it only served to magnify Quinn's feelings of isolation.

Quinn had never been the best at making friends, her therapist suggested that it maybe the result of her Lucy years. The transient nature of movie set friendships didn't really help matters but even in high school the people she called friends were really only ones of convenience, first the Cheerios and then the Glee club and without those things to keep them together she'd let herself drift away from them. It didn't help that when one gains even a little bit of fame, their Facebook account is one of the first things that needed to go if you wanted to maintain any semblance of privacy, so that link to her old friends was severed years ago.

She wished that she hadn't let it happen so easily, she wished that she tried harder to keep in touch after she left for college. That's not to say she'd completely lost contact to her high school friends, she still saw Brittany and Santana occasionally but catching up with them on a regular basis was next to impossible. Brittany had become somewhat of a modern day David Attenborough, with her own hit show on the Discovery channel, which Santana was one of the executive producers of, and the pair were rarely in town for more than a few weeks at a time before jetting off to some new exotic location to film. The last time Quinn had spoken to them was when they'd gotten together for dinner a month ago, the night before they left on an expedition to the North Pole to film a three part series about a mythical black polar bear that had supposedly been spotted in the region over the past few years but had never been photographed.

Alarmingly, the person from high school that Quinn had the most contact with was Jacob Ben Israel, who'd ridden on the coattails of Quinn's fame to become one of the most popular gossip bloggers in Hollywood. Just before the release of the first Among Us movie, at a time when everyone wanted to know about the mysterious new It Girl, Quinn Fabray, along came Jacob Ben Israel, armed with old yearbooks and exclusive tales of Lucy Caboosey and teen pregnancy.

Luckily, it had mostly worked out in Quinn's favor, thanks to her PR team spinning the Lucy issue into an ugly duckling fairytale that tied in nicely to her character in Among Us and scored her a sweet endorsement deal with ProActive, and her lawyers taking out an injunction to keep the media from talking about Beth, which scared most of them away from mentioning her pregnancy at all for fear of getting the pants sued off them.

Quinn was very well aware how sad it was that the people she was closest to now were her manager, her personal assistant -who had no qualms about occasionally selling her out to the paparazzi if the price was right- and her therapist. Most of the time she didn't care; Quinn was a loner, she always had been, yet sometimes she couldn't help but crave the companionship she'd felt in Glee club, where they all screwed each other over six ways from Sunday but when the chips were down and you really needed them, you knew that they'd always have your back.

After making her way down to the kitchen, Quinn put the kettle on to boil before going to the cupboard to pick out a tea from her extensive collection. Deciding that it was a Raspberry Rush kind of day, she went about preparing the loose leaves in her favorite teapot. She was sure that her teenage self would be horrified that she even owned a teapot, let alone had a favorite one, but the ritual of brewing tea was something that she found very soothing and had fallen in love with.

A garment bag and a stack of mail were laid out on the counter where her assistant, Max, had left them when he'd dropped by earlier. Quinn decided to check her mail while she waited for the tea to steep.

The first few in the stack were all junk mail but buried underneath was a square envelope with her name written in beautiful calligraphy script on the front and fastened with a wax seal.

"Huh." Quinn hummed to herself as she broke the seal with her finger and removed the embossed card inside.

_You are cordially invited to the wedding of Tina Muriel Cohen-Chang & Michael Aaron Chang (no relation), to be held at the Lima Heights Country Club at 1:30pm, Jul 8th, 2018,_ it read. And then written at the bottom of the card in blue ink which had clearly been later, _Please come, Quinn, we all miss you – Tina._

Quinn couldn't help but grin widely. They'd actually made it. The last Quinn had heard of the couple, they were going to attempt to do the long distance thing with Tina still in high school and Mike going off to college. She'd thought it was sweet but naïve that they expected it to last. But apparently Tina and Mike had beaten the odds and Quinn couldn't be happier about being wrong.

The only thing that was stopping her from filling out the RSVP card immediately was the fact that the wedding was being held in Lima.

Once Quinn had left Lima for Yale, she'd never once looked back. The closest she'd gotten to her old hometown since then was when she'd celebrated Christmas with her family at her sister's home in Cleveland and that had been over three years ago now.

Lima just held so many bad memories for her, too many, and not nearly enough good ones to combat them nor the motivation to return home that was strong enough to overcome them. Until now.

Before she could overthink herself out of it, Quinn fished a pen out it's holder and started filling out the RSVP card. Look out, Lima, Teen Choice Award winner Quinn Fabray was coming home.


	2. Chapter 2

The house seemed so much smaller than she remembered.

Maybe it was because she was so used to being surrounded by the lavishly large mansions of the rich and famous in LA. Or maybe it was because she wasn't a scared teenager anymore.

Quinn's hand moved to the hollow of her throat, reaching for the golden cross that hadn't rested there in years, as she remembered the last time she'd stood in that exact spot of the driveway, luggage in hand -sixteen years old, pregnant and homeless- wondering if she'd ever see the inside of her home again. It had seemed so big and imposing then.

Shaking herself out of her bad memories, Quinn made her way across the grass and up onto the porch, dragging her rolling suitcase behind her. She rang the bell and chuckled to herself when she heard church bells echoing through the house. Some things never changed.

The heavy oak door swung open and Quinn laid eyes on her mother for the first time in over two years. Time -and copious amounts of botox- had been kind to Judy Fabray. "Quinnie!" was all the warning Quinn got before she was engulfed in a tight hug by her mother. "Oh, it's so good to see you!"

"Hey, mom," Quinn whispered, returning the hug. "It's good to see you too."

All too soon, Quinn was released and was being ushered inside. "Come in, come in. I wish you'd called me when your flight landed," Judy fussed. "I could have picked you up from the airport."

"Mom, it's fine. I didn't mind driving myself."

After being stuck for almost an hour in line behind an unfortunate college student who'd gotten stopped and had his laptop and iPod searched and then subsequently confiscated for having illegally downloaded content on them, the last thing Quinn wanted was to spend anymore time in the airport, so she hired a car and drove herself.

"You've redecorated," she observed as she followed her mother into the living room.

Judy looked confused for a moment. "Oh, yes. I had the whole house done almost three years ago. Now why don't you sit down and I'll fix you something to eat. I can't imagine eating that horrible airline food, you must be starving," she said, flitting off towards the kitchen before Quinn could object.

"Not really," Quinn muttered at her mother's departing back. The food served in first class nowadays was better than you'd find in most restaurants.

She sat down on the couch and dug her fingers into the stiff leather. She was being treated like a guest instead of family and she hated it. She hated that she didn't know how to change it.

So Quinn sat, twiddling her thumbs, waiting for her mother to return with a completely unnecessary snack. The silence only broken by the tick-tocking of the antique Grandfather clock until Judy returned, plate and two steaming mugs in hand.

"Here, I made your favorite," she said, setting down the BLT laden plate and drinks down on the coffee table in front of her daughter then taking a seat across from her.

"Thank you," Quinn said, politely. She didn't have the heart to tell her mother that she'd been a vegetarian for almost two years now. Instead she reached forward and claimed her coffee, hoping she'd be able to stall on having to eat the bacon filled sandwich.

"So is it true?" Judy asked, eagerly leaning forward ready to gossip.

Quinn raised an eyebrow. "Is what true?"

"That you've signed on to be the star in the new James Cameron movie."

Quinn sighed and took a sip of her coffee. "Where'd you hear about that?"

"Fern Talbot told me that she read it in US Weekly."

Of course. "Mom, how many times do I have to tell you that you can't believe anything they say in the tabloids?"

Judy looked crestfallen. "So you're not going to be in it?"

"I've auditioned for it but haven't heard anything back," Quinn admitted. "My agent thinks they're probably going to go with Emma Stone."

Judy shook her head disapprovingly. "You know, I've never liked that girl."

Quinn smirked into her mug, she was fairly certain that her mother had no idea who Emma Stone actually was. "I know."

She didn't know what to say after that and apparently neither did Judy, so they both focused on their coffees -one a little more Irish than the other- and let the grandfather clock fill in the silence. Tick. Tock.

"You know, it's really too bad that you couldn't make it back home for Christmas," said Judy, breaking the awkward silence. "But I suppose I understand, I probably would've chosen Maui over Ohio too, if I had the choice. The weather looked lovely in the pictures I saw of you in the magazines."

Quinn smiled softly. "Yeah, it was nice."

"And Jack looked very...handsome. So tanned and muscular..." Quinn cringed internally as her mother trailed off, no doubt lost in a post-menopausal fantasy about the wet, shirtless form of her co-star. Gross.

Judy shivered, snapping out of her daydream and slapping an overly wide smile on her face. "How is he these days?"

"He's good." Quinn paused and cleared her throat before continuing. "He would've come with me but he's busy filming his new movie in New York."

"Oh, well that's a shame. You two have been dating for so long and I've only met the man once."

"I know, mom. Maybe you could come out to LA for Thanksgiving or something-"

"Oh, I couldn't do that," Judy dismissed the idea easily. "Spending the holidays with your sister and my grandchildren is so important to me, Quinnie, you know that."

"Okay, well, some other time then," Quinn said, graciously. "Just let me know and I'll pay for your ticket."

"That's very generous of you, darling, but you don't need to do that."

"Mom, I don't mind," she insisted, trying to be a good daughter. "Really, it's not like I can't afford it."

"You should be saving your money, Quinnie. Acting is not a financially stable profession, look at what happened to that Lohan girl. She made all that money when she was young and now she's completely penniless and living on the streets!" Judy warned. She'd never kept her disapproval of Quinn's chosen profession a secret.

Quinn had to bite back an acerbic retort about how all of Lindsay's career and financial problems stemmed from her being a drug addict. The last thing she needed to do was bring up drugs around her mother, who was under the bizarre impression that there were mountains of cocaine and bowls of prescription pills just laid out for consumption at every party in Hollywood. "A plane ticket is hardly going to bankrupt me."

"I'd prefer to pay my own way, Quinn," Judy said, the slight edge to her words made it clear that this wasn't an argument her daughter would win and Quinn knew there was no point in pressing the issue.

"Okay. Well, like I said, just let me know."

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

Quinn couldn't have been more relieved to hear her phone chime away in her pocket. "Sorry," she apologized demurely to her mother as she pulled it out and unlocked the screen. It was a text message from Santana. **Mini glee reunion 2nite 7:30 Benchwarmers. Be there bitch.**Quinn smiled to herself as she typed out her affirmative response. She'd been home less than thirty minutes and already she couldn't wait to get out of the house.

"Is that from Jack?" Judy inquired.

"No, it's from Santana. She was just letting me know that a bunch of glee kids are getting together for drinks tonight."

"You still speak to that girl?"

Judy Fabray had never been particularly fond of Santana Lopez but she had always called her by name until the day she saw the ad that had outed Santana to not only the whole of Ohio but, thanks to the internet, the entire world. From that day forward, Santana had only been referred to as 'that girl' by Quinn's mother.

"Yeah, sometimes. It's not that big of a deal," said Quinn. She didn't want to have to sit there and listen to the speech her mom always gave whenever Santana's name came up, where she went on and on about how disappointed and ashamed Santana's parents must be of her, she already knew it off by heart. "You know, I'm kind of tired. I think I'll go upstairs and take a nap. If that's okay."

Judy pursed her lips, not looking at all pleased but didn't object. "Of course, dear."

Quinn nodded and grabbed the handle of her rolling suitcase, dragging it behind her as she trudged up the stairs to her room. Or what used to be her room.

Her mother had meant it when she said she'd redecorated the whole house. Gone was the patterned wallpaper and old furniture, along with all of the personal effects that Quinn had left behind when she'd left for college. Best case scenario, they'd been boxed and stored in the attic but more likely they'd been donated to Goodwill or simply just thrown away. Her mother was not one to be sentimental about material things unless they were plastic crowns.

Quinn ditched her luggage by the door and collapsed back on the bed, pressing the heels of her palms tightly to her eyes and exhaling heavily.

She wished that she and her mother could talk like a normal mother and daughter. Hell, she wished she and her mother could just talk like normal _people_, instead of the awkward, stilted conversations that they always found themselves engaged in these days, completely unable to relate to each other. It was bad enough when they spoke over the phone but in person it was almost unbearable.

Three days. She just had to make it through three days and then she'd be out of Lima, on the next plane back to New York, where all her fans thought she was spending this little mini-break, so she could make another public appearance with Jack and then back home to LA. Three days, she told herself, that was practically no time at all.

#

Unfortunately, Quinn had forgotten how slowly time moved in small towns like Lima. Even after she'd napped, showered and changed it was still barely after six in the afternoon.

The sun was still out and the weather was nice, a gentle breeze kept the temperature comfortably warm for that time of year and Quinn couldn't wait a moment longer to get out of the house, so she decided to walk to Benchwarmers; she wasn't planning on drinking much but it was best to err on the side of caution, her publicist would kill her if she got a DUI, and it would give her a chance to explore her old hometown in a way that driving wouldn't.

It seemed that the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. Walking down the main street Quinn felt like she'd stepped into a time warp back to her senior year as she passed by all the same stores, run by the same people. The only major change she noticed, with no small amount of sadness, was that Mrs Dupont's dance studio had been replaced by a Taco Bell. She wondered what had happened to her old dance teacher, had she been forced out by the rising cost of rent or had simply chosen to retire?

Quinn was hyper aware of the odd looks and double takes she received from people as she passed by. She was used to being stared at, even before she was famous her looks got her a certain amount of attention from strangers, but it still made her wary.

She was just glad that nobody stopped her to try and get her autograph. Not that she was opposed to interacting with her fans, it's just that situations like that tended to snowball and she could've very easily ended up being mobbed by overzealous fans and nosy onlookers alike which she just wasn't in the mood to deal with. She just wanted to relax and catch up with her old friends while she was home.

Stepping into Benchwarmers, Quinn spotted Brittany and Santana right away. The were playing -and she used that term loosely since it appeared that they were just competing to see who could get the closest to the bullseye rather than actually keeping score- darts with Sam Evans and a auburn haired woman that Quinn didn't recognize.

Brittany was the first to spot her hovering in the entrance way. "Quinn!" she yelled, bounding over to hug her.

Even as she returned the enthusiastic embrace, Quinn's eyes instinctively darted around the bar to see if Britttany's outburst had gained her any unwanted attention. Luckily it seemed that, besides their group, Benchwarmers' only customers were a few middle aged men who were hunched over their beers at the bar; hardly her demographic.

She was hugged by Santana and then Sam in quick succession and introduced to Sam's girlfriend, Alyson, who was apparently a huge fan of Quinn's and Quinn was more than happy to indulge her request for a picture and autograph.

Mike and Tina arrived a few minutes later with an African American man in tow who looked familiar to Quinn but she didn't recognize until Mike introduced him to Sam as Matt Rutherford.

They ended up pushing two tables together and ordering two pitchers of beer along with baskets of onion rings, curly fries and buffalo wings. Santana took it upon herself to order a round of tequila shots so they could perform a toast and was very put out when Tina refused to participate.

"Santana, I'm the designated driver."

"C'mon, Girl Chang, it's just one shot, stop being such a pussy. I wants to gets my drink on."

"Really, Santana?" Quinn chuckled, diverting the attention away from a blushing Tina, who's hand, Quinn noticed, was now protectively placed over her abdomen. She'd congratulate her later in private. "You're back for one day and you've already gone all Lima Heights Adjacent again."

"You know what they say, you can take the girl out of Lima Heights Adjacent but you can't take the Lima Heights Adjacent out of the girl or whatever."

"Uh-huh, sure," Quinn said, raising an eyebrow while Sam tried to explain to his girlfriend why Santana was talking like that. "Never mind that you've never actually spent more than five minutes there in your entire life."

"It was enough," Santana shot back defensively.

"Look, Tina doesn't have to drink if she doesn't want to. Why don't you just take the extra shot, since you're so eager to _gets your drink on._?"

"Fine," Santana agreed, snatching the shot from the table in front of Tina and holding it up high, indicating it was time for her toast. "To Chang Squared and the New Directions!"

"Chang Squared and the New Directions," they cheered in unison, clinking their shot glasses together before throwing back the liquor.

Quinn winced and wheezed a little as the tequila burned it's way down her throat and went straight to her beer for a chaser. So much for not drinking much.

#

After the toast, conversation turned towards sharing what everyone was doing with themselves these days. Nobody bothered to ask Quinn what she was up to, they felt like they didn't need to since every detail of her life was constantly splashed across the pages of tabloids for all to see.

Sam had joined the police force and had been dating Alyson, who was a kindergarten teacher, for almost a year now. Matt Rutherford was even quieter than Quinn remembered and all they got out of him was that worked in a library -later on when Matt took a bathroom break, Mike apologized for his friend's sullenness and explained that Matt was going through a terrible break up- and Mike and Tina owned and operated their own dance studio in Miami and did choreography work on the side. Mike had even formed his own hip hop dance troupe called The Banditz, who's flashmob routines were quite the sensation on YouTube.

Somehow the conversation had eventually turned to who was the better pool player, leading Santana to challenge Mike to a game.

Quinn leaned back on her elbows against the bar, nursing a white wine and watching her old friends squabble over the which length cues they should be using.

She smiled at Sam as he sidled up to join her. His hair was clipped short and a darker blond than it used to be and it made her sad to see that he'd lost some of his boyish innocence, which only made sense considering his line of work, Quinn supposed, but Sam was still as handsome as he'd ever been.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Alyson seems really nice."

Sam grinned widely at the mention of girlfriend. "Yeah, she's awesome. We met because of you, you know?"

"How?"

"We were at Comic-Con, she was in front of me in line to get into the Among Us panel," Sam explained. "We got to talking and I told her that I used to date you. She didn't believe me until I showed her a picture. Anyway the hall got filled up and the line got cut off right in front of us, so I invited her to go get coffee instead and we totally hit it off. So really it's all thanks you."

"Well, you're welcome, I guess. So how does she deal with you being a cop? And how did that happen anyway? I never knew you had an interest in law enforcement."

Sam ducked his head and blushed. "Yeah, well, I get to put on a uniform and fight crime, I figured that being a cop was the closest I'm ever going to get to being a superhero."

Quinn chuckled and nudged him affectionately. "Figures."

"And Alyson's really good about it, very supportive. I mean, she worries, of course, but..." he trailed off, seemingly lost in thought. "I see stuff, you know. A lot of bad stuff, the kind of stuff that stays with you, but then I come home and Aly's there and she's always so happy and she's got all these funny stories about what the kids in her class have done that day and she makes all that bad stuff better...I'm gonna ask her to marry me."

"Sam, that's great! I'm so happy for you," Quinn said, throwing her arms around her ex-boyfriend in an impulsive hug. She was happy for him, of course, but this was just another remind her that she was at the age where all of her friends were starting settle down. She was surprised that Santana hadn't popped the question to Brittany yet "When are you going to ask her?"

"I dunno, I haven't really thought that far ahead yet. I haven't even gotten her a ring," he admitted sheepishly. "I just feel like it's time, you know? We love each other and we're already living together and our families get along great. It feels right, like it's the sensible thing to do."

"Well, all I can say is that Alyson's a very lucky girl," Quinn said sincerely. "And speaking of your family, how are they doing?"

By the time graduation had rolled around, the Evans were just on the verge of finally crawling out of underneath a mountain of debt and Quinn just hoped that life had gotten better for them.

"Dad hurt his shoulder at work and had to go on disability so Mom's started working again but they're doing okay. I send part of every paycheck I get back home to go towards Steve and Stacey's college funds."

"So it's Steve now, huh?" Quinn drawled, remembering Sam's adorable towheaded little brother.

"Yeah," Sam laughed. "Well, he's a teenager now, practically a man! And Stevie's a kid's name."

"He'll always be Stevie to me," Quinn teased.

"I think you're probably the only person in the world who could get away with calling him that nowadays. He's always bragging to his friends about how he used to be babysat by Quinn Fabray. He has all your movies on blu-ray, got posters of you covering his walls."

Quinn grimaced at the thought of what that implied. "That's...sweet."

Sam let out a full-bellied laugh. He hadn't even mentioned the box of magazines with Quinn on the cover that Steve kept under his bed. "Yeah. Sweet."

"We've done alright for ourselves, haven't we?" Quinn mused.

They'd both been through a lot at a young age, shared the experiences of being homeless, of having to grow up faster than any teenager should and here they were five years later. Successful. Rich...well, in Quinn's case anyway. Happy doing jobs they loved.

Sam threw his arm around Quinn's shoulders and pulled her close to his side. "Yeah, I'd say we've done pretty damn good."

#

Once it had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt -although Santana and Brittany would vehemently disagree- that Mike was the superior pool player, the group had returned to their table and had begun reminiscing over the glory days of glee club and all the drama that they'd been through together.

Talking about the time Puck got sent to juvie for attempting to steal an ATM revealed that  
>he wouldn't be making it to the wedding due to him being in jail for fraud of all things, apparently he'd being running a reasonably successful pyramid scheme until he got busted by the cops. At least he was moving up in the world.<p>

Discussing how Kurt had to leave McKinley to attend Dalton and ended up falling in love with Blaine Anderson lead to Tina admitting that Blaine hadn't been invited to the wedding, thanks to the incredibly bitter break up he had with Kurt during Kurt's sophomore year at NYADA. Even though Kurt was pretty much entirely to blame for the split, he had been their friend first so they felt like their loyalty had to lie with him.

They were in the middle of informing Matt and Alyson about the complete fiasco that was their junior prom when Quinn couldn't keep her burning question inside anymore, she just had to ask.

"Hey, what ever happened to Rachel Berry?" It was a question that had plagued her over the years. At first she thought that Rachel was just concentrating on her studies at NYADA and that's why Quinn hadn't heard anything about her taking Broadway by storm but it had been five years now and nothing. A few weeks ago, fulled by boredom and curiosity, Quinn had checked Rachel's facebook page but that hadn't helped to shed any light on Rachel's current status. Rachel had it set on completely private and the only thing Quinn could see was her picture that hadn't changed since her freshman year of college.

The laughter and chatter ceased immediately and a tingle of dread went up Quinn's spine. Why would they react like that to a simple question? Had something horrible happened to Rachel? Had she died? No, if Rachel had died someone would have told her, surely.

"Oh my God," Santana said, smirking mischievously. "You guys have to let me tell her."

Okay, she's smiling. That's good. Santana wouldn't be smiling if Rachel was dead. "Tell me what?"

"Okay, so Britts and me got into town yesterday and it's been way too long since I've gotten my 'Stix on-"

"Seriously, why are talking like that?" Quinn interrupted. She knew that Santana was fully capable of using correct grammar and talking like an intelligent human being. Being Lima must've been making her regress dramatically.

"Shut it, Lucifer." Yep, Santana was definitely regressing back to her high school persona. "Anyways, so we go to Breadstix for dinner and guess who our waitress was-"

No way. There was just no way.

"-Rachel freaking Berry!"


	3. Chapter 3

Quinn stood on the curb waving goodbye to the departing cab that was carrying Brittany and Santana until the taillights disappeared around the corner.

When the gathering at Benchwarmers had broken up just before midnight Mike and Tina had offered to give Sam and Alyson a ride, since they were already taking Matt back to the same hotel where they were saying, and Quinn had agreed to split a cab with Brittany and Santana, since they were staying with Santana's family only two streets over from Quinn's mothers' house.

She trudged across the grass, thinking about how thankful she was that she'd managed to find her old set of keys to the house before she went out and hoping that her mother was already in bed. The last thing she needed was to experience Judy Fabray's disapproving glare as she slunk in reeking of booze.

Not that Quinn was drunk. A little bit tipsy maybe but certainly not drunk. She'd just ended up drinking more than she had initially planned after Santana had dropped that bomb about Rachel on her, which Quinn thought was entirely understandable. She needed those three extra glasses of wine to help her try to wrap her head around the fact that Rachel Berry was a waitress at Breadstix.

And it wasn't like any of the others could explain how it happened either. Santana immediately laid all the blame on Finn Hudson, stating that they all knew that boy was going to ruin Rachel's life sooner or later. Tina disagreed, saying it wasn't fair to lay all the blame on Finn when they didn't know the whole story and added that all she knew was that she heard from Mercedes that Kurt and Rachel had had a massive falling out during their freshman year at NYADA that resulted in Kurt moving out of the apartment he shared with the couple and she was pretty sure that they hadn't spoken since.

But none of that explained why Rachel was still in Lima and working at _Breadstix_, of all places. Quinn knew that a lot of struggling actors worked in the food service industry to make ends meet but this was just absurd.

Rachel had made it to New York. She'd gotten out of Lima. So what the hell was she doing back? Quinn couldn't stop thinking about it.

After doing a very simplified version of her nightly routine, Quinn kicked off her boots and peeled off her dress before climbing under the covers. Thanks to the good old Fabray constitution, Quinn knew that she wasn't going to have to deal with a hangover in the morning -an ability that had definitely come in handy during her college days- and she was thankful for it. She had a lot of to do tomorrow and she was going to need a clear head if she was ever going to get to the bottom of the mystery that was Rachel Berry.

#

Sitting in her car in the parking lot of the Lima Heights Country Club, Quinn compulsively checked her reflection in the rear view mirror one last time; a habit she'd developed after years of living as a celebrity in LA where there was the high probability of being photographed every time you stepped out of the relatively safe confines of your vehicle.

She knew she looked good with her long blonde hair pulled into an elegant updo, combined with understated make-up, a simple plum colored dress with a modest split up the leg and strappy silver pumps. She'd kept the bling to a minimum, only wearing her watch and the diamond stud earrings that Jack had given her for her birthday. Quinn knew that her presence would inevitably draw attention so she'd dressed down in an conscious attempt to not pull focus from the bride. She'd feel terrible if she upstaged Tina at her own wedding.

It wasn't until Quinn had already climbed out of her car that she recognized the old pickup truck that she'd parked next to and realized who the man that was stepping out of it must be. Damn it all to Hell.

She pressed herself against the side of her car and turned her face in the opposite direction, trying to make herself as invisible as possible, hoping he'd pass by without noticing her. But of course that didn't work out.

"Quinn!"

"Shit," Quinn hissed lowly through gritted teeth before putting on her best show face and turning to face her ex-boyfriend. "Finn, hello. I didn't see you there."

He grinned at her as his eyes shifted to her car. "You're driving a Chevy?" he asked, surprised. "Wow. I thought you'd be driving something a little fancier since you're all famous now."

"It's a rental," she replied flatly as she stared up at Finn and wondered what the hell she had ever seen in him.

Finn had really let himself go over the years. His cheap gray suit was at least one size too small and clung unflatteringly to his bulky body and the skinny tie he was wearing only served to make his torso seem even wider. She was surprised Kurt let Finn out of the house wearing it but then again she had no idea how much contact the stepbrothers had with each other nowadays.

While in high school Finn had been kind of...pudgy but now he was just plain fat which Quinn wasn't surprised by at all; Finn had always hated exercise and had really only ever done the bare minimum to meet the fitness requirements that Coach Beiste had set to be allowed to play on the football and basketball teams, so it only figured that once he'd graduated and was no longer forced to work out he'd really packed on the pounds.

"Oh," Finn muttered dumbly, then his lips curled into that half smile that he always smiled when he was trying to be charming. Ever since she'd lost her 'Finn blinders' towards the end of their junior year, it had made Quinn want to punch him in the face. She wondered if he had any idea that while she was sure that he was going for boyishly charming, he just ended up looking like a smarmy douchebag. "I'm really glad you could make it, Quinn, it's so awesome to see you again. You know, I've never stopped thinking about you."

"Is that so?" Quinn drawled, eyebrow raised. She was pretty sure she knew where he was going with this and she didn't like it one bit.

Finn's half smile faltered a little as he realized that he was dealing with Scary Quinn but he wasn't going to be put off, he'd been waiting years for this chance. "Yeah. I was an idiot in high school, I realize that now, I never should've broken up with you. You were right, we belong together. So I was thinking, since you're back in town-"

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there," Quinn interrupted. If she wasn't so furious about what he'd done to Rachel -because after running it over in her head all night, Quinn had decided that Santana had to have been right; whatever happened to Rachel that caused her to end up working a dead end job in Lima had to have been Finn's fault. It's what Quinn had always feared, that Finn would get in the way of Rachel achieving her dreams.- then she would've found the way Finn was still desperately trying to cling to his high school glories incredibly sad. "You and me? It's _never_ going to happen again. It never should have happened the second time and the only reason it did was because I was suffering from a prolonged bout of _temporary insanity._ You did me the biggest favor of my life by breaking up with me at that funeral because I know that I never would've made it to where I am today if I had been tethered down to dead weight like you. It's just too bad Rachel wasn't as fortunate."

Finn's entire demeanor changed in an instant, transforming from affable to angry in the blink of an eye; his hands balled into fists at his sides as his eyes narrowed and his lips twisted into an ugly snarl.

"You have no idea what you're talking about, Quinn. Rachel Berry's the one that ruined me. She screwed up my entire life! If you'd bothered to keep in touch with us little people, you'd know that," he raged at her before storming off.

_What the hell was that supposed to mean?_ Quinn wondered as she watched Finn stomp across the parking lot, kicking a recycling can over as he passed it, sending litter spilling out across the asphalt.

_And so the plot thickens._


	4. Chapter 4

Quinn certainly didn't put much stock in Finn's accusation that Rachel had ruined his life; she knew very well that in the world according to Finn Hudson nothing bad that happened was ever his fault and he was always the victim.

If anything the encounter had just made her even more certain that he was very much part of the reason why Rachel was working as a waitress in Lima instead of taking Broadway by storm. It was what Quinn had always suspected would happen if Finn and Rachel had stayed together after high school, it was what she had tried so very hard to prevent.

As she crossed the parking lot, she thought back to the last conversation she'd had with Rachel. It was the night before Mercedes got on a plane to Los Angeles and Quinn left for Yale, and Puck had thrown a party to celebrate; one last big blowout with the whole team together.

_Quinn pushed back the sliding door and stepped out onto the Puckerman's balcony. She was in desperate need of some fresh air and an escape from the party going on inside. What was supposed to be one last night of fun before she left for college was quickly turning into a complete nightmare that had left Quinn positively seething._

_She'd thought that she and Rachel had truly bonded over the summer, with Finn out of the picture and neither of them wanting to play the third wheel to Kurt and Blaine or Santana and Brittany respectively, they'd ended up spending most of their time together; planning for their college lives, shopping for dorm room essentials and new college outfits, helping each other choose and rehearse dramatic monologues for future auditions. They weren't just planning their futures, they were planning a future together._

_In fact, they were supposed to be leaving together the very next day. They had made plans to load their belongings into the huge SVU that Judy had given Quinn as a graduation present, make the ten or so hour drive to New York and get Rachel settled in her dorm room before Quinn continued on to New Haven. Only now Quinn had discovered that the plan had changed and, to add insult to injury, she'd had to hear it from Tina. TINA!_

_She should've seen it coming. She was furious at herself for not expecting it. Besides a few quick text messages, Rachel hadn't even really spoken to her in two weeks; not since Finn had turned back up like a bad penny claiming that he loved Rachel too damn much to stay away from her any longer. At the time, Quinn had thought it was pure horseshit and she'd had her suspicions confirmed when earlier that evening she'd overheard Kurt confiding in Blaine that Finn had actually been kicked out of boot camp for repeated incidents of insubordination. Going from spending nearly ever day with Rachel to being totally cut off the second Finn had reentered the picture had been somewhat of a rude awakening but she'd foolishly held out hope. What an idiot she was._

_And then for a drunken Tina Cohen-Chang to joyfully babble her at that Finn had put a deposit down on a New York apartment for him and Rachel, sight unseen, and wasn't that just the most romantic thing she'd ever heard? Well, that was just the final straw._

_Quinn had been so frustrated that she'd gone to bitch to Santana about it, only to find her friend to be less than sympathetic. Although, admittedly, the fact that she'd interrupted Santana and Brittany getting their sweet lady kisses on may have been a contributing factor._

_"What did you expect, Q? The girl is dickmatized," Santana said, rolling her eyes. Rachel was a lost cause but for some reason Quinn was the only one who refused to accept it. "Seriously, she's been cockwhipped for as long as we've known her. Of course she'd pathetically go crawling back the second Bitch Tits snapped his fingers. Face it, Quinn, unless you magically grow a penis you're never going to come first with her."_

_Quinn drained the rest of her Diet Pepsi wishing it was something stronger. The others were having a grand old time getting wasted on the wine coolers and Natty Light that Puck had so generously supplied. But she was so close to getting out of there; her bright, shiny future was within reach, and she sure as hell wasn't going to take any unnecessary risks, like getting drunk around Puck, that could jepordize it._

_She leaned on her forearms against the railing, rolling the empty red solo cup between her palms. She heard the door slide open behind her and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She didn't need to look to know it was Rachel hovering behind her, anxiously waiting to be acknowledged._

_But Quinn was pissed off at her and feeling petty, so she refused to give Rachel the attention she knew she was craving._

_"Hi," Rachel timidly broke the silence._

_"So that's it then?" Quinn asked, still not turning to face her. "Finn comes crawling back and you've got that ring back on your finger just like nothing ever happened?"_

_"I love him, Quinn. I know you don't understand it." That's for damn sure. "But I do."_

_Quinn just shook her head in disgust, not at Rachel, but at herself for thinking that things had changed. That she'd managed to change them. "Tina told me that you two are going to be living together now."_

_Rachel cringed. "I was going to tell you."_

_"When? I'm leaving tomorrow, Rachel, and you were supposed to be coming with me."_

_"I know. I'm sorry."_

_Quinn finally turned to face her. The moonlight glinted off the silver pendant hanging around Rachel's neck as if it were mocking her._

_"I thought that you were excited about living in the dorms. That it'd be a wonderful opportunity to bond with your fellow performers and make friendships and showbiz connections that would last a lifetime and benefit your burgeoning career," she said, practically quoting Rachel word for word._

_"I was," Rachel admitted, nervously playing with her fingers. "But Finn can't live in the dorms and he can't afford to rent a place on his own."_

_The poor innocent red solo cup she'd been holding was crushed in Quinn's fist and tossed aside. "So, once again, you're giving something up for him."_

_Rachel's chin lifted defiantly. "It's called compromise, Quinn, and it's an integral part of every adult relationship."_

_Quinn rolled her eyes. The very last thing Finn and Rachel had was an adult relationship. "Well, you seem to be doing a hell of a lot of compromising these days," she bitterly remarked._

_"You know, sometimes I think that being part of the glee club was the worst thing that ever could have happened to you. Mr Schue and Finn and the others have managed to get into your head and convince you that ambition is some kind of dirty word and the willingness to do whatever it takes to achieve the dreams you've had since you were three months old is some awful flaw in your character that you should be ashamed of and needed to be fixed but it's not."_

_"Isn't it?" Rachel argued. "Do you remember what I used to be like, Quinn? I was annoying and abrasive, I didn't have any friends, let alone a boyfriend. You hated me-"_

_"I didn't hate you. I may not have liked you but I still respected you. I respected your ambition. I respected the fact that you were willing to do whatever it took to get what you wanted. I used to wish that I could be as brave as you, that I could allow myself to want things as much as you did."_

_Rachel's jaw dropped in shock. Quinn Fabray had envied her?_

_"Rachel, that girl you used to be, as annoying and abrasive as she may have been, she had that competitive edge that you need to make it, she was going to be a star, it was inevitable and everyone knew it. But this new, supposedly improved, self-sacrificing you? I honestly can't see that happening anymore and you have no idea how sad that makes me feel."_

_"Why are you being so mean?" Rachel whimpered, tears welling in her big brown eyes._

_Quinn had to look away. "I'm not being mean, Rachel, I'm being honest. It's not my fault that you don't like what you're hearing."_

_Rachel's bottom lip started to wobble as she struggled to get a hold on her emotions. She was angry at Quinn for her stubborn refusal to support her relationship with Finn but knowing that the blonde was disappointed in her was such a wretched feeling. "You know, I actually came out here hoping to get your advice-"_

_Quinn burst out laughing, she couldn't help it._

_"What's so funny?"_

_"That you always come to me looking for advice but you never listen when I give it to you."_

_Rachel looked affronted. "That's not true."_

_"You know what, you're right. You do listen and then you always go and do the exact opposite of what I say." Quinn chuckled bitterly. She'd played the good, supportive friend and held her tongue all summer long while Rachel pined away for Finn, claiming that she didn't know where they stood despite the fact that he'd dumped her before sending her off on a train to New York and hadn't contacted her since, and quite frankly she was sick of it. "So, you know what? I think it's a great idea for you and Finn to get back together. You know, I think you two should just bite the bullet and elope tonight! You could drive to Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator, I know that's not really your style but I'm sure that Finn would love it and compromise really is such an integral part of an adult relationship."_

_Quinn knew that what she'd just done was just about as useless and futile as bashing her head against a Finn obsessed brick wall but it felt good to finally get it out._

_"I thought that you were over this!" Rachel cried in frustration. What ever this was. "You were going to come to the wedding, you said you supported us-"_

_"And what did that get me? Besides scars that are never going to heal," Quinn snapped. "I went against everything I believed in, just to make you happy, and I got hit by a truck."_

_"You said that you didn't blame me for that," Rachel whimpered._

_"And I don't," Quinn said, suddenly calm. "I don't blame you, Rachel, I never did. I blame myself for compromising my beliefs and deciding to be involved in that absurd charade."_

_"You're just jealous!"_

_"Excuse me?" Quinn gasped, blindsided by the sudden accusation._

_"You're jealous. You hate that Finn and I are together-"_

_"Obviously."_

_"-because you want him for yourself!"_

_"Oh, you have got to be kidding me!" That was, without a doubt, the most ridiculous thing Quinn had ever heard coming out of Rachel Berry's mouth. "Why the hell would I want Finn Hudson?"_

_Rachel didn't even know why she'd said it. She knew that on any given day, Quinn's feelings towards Finn only ranged from neutral, at best, to actively despising him. Even now, she said his name with such disdain. Quinn obviously didn't want him back but now she had no choice but to roll with her irrational outburst. "B-Because he's the star quarterback, the handsome male lead-"_

_"He was, Rachel, he was the star quarterback and he was the male lead but he's not anymore. High school is over and it's time for us to face the real world and in the real world all Finn is is a moron who can barely tell his right from his left, has no qualifications, and whose only plans for the future appear to consist of riding on your coattails until you either realize you could do so much better and cut him loose or he drags you down with him."_

_"That's not true."_

_"Isn't it?" Quinn asked, eyebrow raised. Finn was cemented onto that pedestal Rachel had him placed upon, she knew now that there was nothing she could say or do that would change that. All she could do now was admit defeat._

_Quinn stepped in close to Rachel and said in a weary voice. "You have no idea how frustrating it is to watch you throwing your life away on someone so...unworthy of you. I can't do it anymore, Rachel, I really can't. I'm done."_

_"So that's it, you're giving up on me?" Rachel cried, tears streaming down her flushed cheeks. "Just because you don't approve of my boyfriend? Well then I guess Finn was right, you were never really my friend after all."_

_Quinn shrugged, her face blank and unreadable. "I guess not."_

She'd walked away after that. The next morning when the whole Glee club -Mr Schuester, Miss Pillsbury and Sue Sylvester included- had gathered on her front lawn to see her off, Finn and Rachel were nowhere to be seen. The Metro North passes that Quinn had spent nearly a thousand dollars on were never used.

The fact that her friendship with Rachel had ended on such a sour note was one of the many regrets in Quinn's life. But now the universe was giving her a chance to fix it and she'd be damned if she'd let an opportunity like that pass her by.


	5. Chapter 5

Held in the award winning rose gardens of the Lima Heights Country Club, Mike and Tina's wedding was simple but elegant and had exactly the amount of theatricality one would expect when the bride, groom and wedding parties were all trained, if not professional, dancers. Needless to say, the five minute choreographed dance break as they made their way back down the aisle was spectacular.

Quinn had been seated in between Sam and Mercedes, who'd bought her very handsome boyfriend of five months, Derrick, along. It was a situation that could've easily been absurdly awkward but thankfully Sam and Mercedes had parted as friends and were genuinely happy to see each other again.

Once the ceremony had concluded, they moved inside to the grand ballroom for the reception, where a sumptuous Chinese banquet was laid out waiting. After several fights over the seating arrangements, Mike and Tina had given up and decided to just have the guests serve themselves from the buffet and sit wherever they wanted.

It gave Quinn the opportunity to roam the room and catch up with the people she hadn't seen since high school and, yes, if she was honest, search for Rachel, who Tina claimed was there but Quinn was yet to catch a glimpse of her. It shouldn't have been so hard to find her, even in the crowd of two hundred or so guests; despite her diminutive stature there was a larger than life quality to Rachel Berry that had always made her stand out in a crowd. No matter how many people were around, Quinn had always been able to seek Rachel out but not anymore, it seemed that she had seemed to have lost that ability over the years, and it frustrated her to no end.

She was on her way back to her seat at the table where Santana, Brittany, Sam, Alyson, Mercedes and Derrick were waiting when she bumped into Mr. Schuester.

"Quinn, hi!" he greeted her enthusiastically, pulling her into a hug. "It is so great to see you!"

Quinn smiled and pulled back. "Hey, Mr Schue."

"Please, you can call me Will now."

She could but she wouldn't. There was just something that felt so wrong about calling teachers by their first names, even long after you'd stopped being their student.

"I'm so glad that I ran into you. You know, I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of you, how proud we all are of you, and congratulate you on all your success."

"Thank you, although I feel like I should be the one congratulating you," she said, nodding to an obviously pregnant Emma who was standing nearby chatting to Mike's mother. "You must be excited."

"Excited, overjoyed, terrified," Will confessed, unable to wipe the smile off his face. He was finally going to be a dad!

"Don't worry, you're going to be a great father. After all, you've had plenty of practice with us. Do you know what you're having?"

"A little boy. We're thinking about naming him Christopher, you know, after Finn's dad."

Quinn raised an eyebrow. Naming your son after the dead father of your former student? Weird. Then again she'd heard that Finn had been Mr Schue's best man at his wedding so... "That's...nice." Really, what else could she say? "Um, I've been meaning to ask, how's Coach Sylvester doing?"

She'd heard that her old mentor had given birth to a little girl with Down's Syndrome shortly after Quinn had left for Yale but that was all she knew.

"Well, it's Principal Sylvester now for one thing," Will informed her. "And at school she's just the same old Sue, although, thankfully, now she's dedicated to terrorizing the marching band rather than the Glee club," he chuckled. "But she's actually turned out to be a really good mom. Her daughter, Robin, is almost six years old now and she's just the sweetest little girl, if you can believe it."

"You know, I actually can." Sure, Quinn had first hand knowledge of how utterly psychotic Sue could be but she had also seen the way she'd taken Becky Jackson under her wing and by all accounts she'd practically raised her late sister Jean who'd turned out pretty well. "I wish I had time to pay them a visit."

"How long are you in town for?"

"I'm leaving tomorrow morning, I'd like to stay longer but I have a photoshoot that I need to get back for."

Will's smile faltered. "Oh. That's a shame, I was going to ask if you could come and speak to the Glee club. We didn't even place at Sectionals this year, so morale's pretty low right now. I thought a visit from you might be able to lift their spirits and inspire them to not give up on their dreams."

"Sorry. But maybe I could drop by another time? My mom has been guilt-tripping me about not coming to visit her enough so I'm sure I'll be back in town soon."

"That would be really great! I mean, Finn helps out a lot with them but I think they could really benefit from hearing from someone like you."

_You mean someone who's actually managed to succeed in life?_Quinn pushed down the comment and just smiled humbly at her old teacher. "Well, I'll see what I can do."

"Will?"

Will's head swiveled around to his wife then back to Quinn. "Looks like duty calls. It was really good seeing you again, Quinn."

"You too, Mr. Schue."

And with that they went their separate ways. Quinn knew that she could have asked him about Rachel, she'd wanted to, but knowing how close the man was with Finn she highly doubted that she'd get an unbiased answer and she really didn't think she could get through hearing another variation of how selfish Rachel had ruined poor Finn's life without slapping someone.

Quinn snagged a flute of champagne from the tray of a passing waiting and returned to her seat.

"Got yourself a stalker there, Q?" Santana observed as Quinn sat down.

Quinn looked over her shoulder to find Jeffery, Mike's fifteen year old cousin, staring at her from another table. Jeffery was a huge fan of hers and he'd already taken a picture with him and given him an autograph but he was still following her around like a love sick puppy.

She turned back, rolling her eyes. "He's harmless," she said dismissively and sipped at her champagne. "So what did I miss?"

"Well, I have been amusing myself by watching Finnept's drunken ass hit on girls that are either way too hot or way too young for him and get shot down every time," Santana said, smirking as she pointed to the open bar where Finn had seemingly taken up permanent residence. Quinn had been avoiding it for that very reason. "And Trouty here was just about to explain to my girl 'Cedes what Puckerman did to land himself in the clink."

Alyson and Derrick looked so lost that Quinn had to smile to herself. She really had missed this. The day Quinn had left for Yale she'd been so certain that there wasn't a thing that she'd ever miss about Lima, Ohio, now she realized that she'd been wrong.

Quinn sat back, fully content to listen as the others talked and be caught up on the lives of her old friends. Mercedes was currently the star attraction on a cruise ship called the Blue Pearl and sang to a packed house every night. Derrick played the bass in her backing band and had admired her for moths before finally mustering up the courage to ask her on a date. Rory Whatshisname had been deported back to Ireland after overstaying his student visa and was banned from reentering the country so he couldn't make it to the wedding. Neither could Joe Hart who was busying doing missionary work in Haiti. Sugar Motta had ended up marring a linebacker who played for the Bengals and was rumored to be starring in the upcoming season of Real Housewives of Cincinnati. Kurt Hummel had dropped out of NYADA shortly after breaking up with Blaine to pursue a career in fashion and the boytoy he'd been parading around like a show pony all afternoon was an eighteen year old male model from Sweden who apparently didn't speak a word of English.

"Hold up," Santana interrupted the conversation as Matt Rutherford took to the microphone to dedicate a song to newly married couple. "He can actually sing? I didn't know he could sing. Did you guys know he could sing?"

Brittany just shrugged her shoulders and said, "I didn't even know he could talk."

From his opening note it became apparent that Matt could sing, he could sing very well in fact.

"Oh, I love this song!" Alyson exclaimed, grabbing Sam by the hand and pulling him out of his seat and onto the crowded dance floor.

The other two couples quickly followed suit, leaving poor dateless Quinn all on her lonesome, which she was perfectly fine with until she spotted Artie Abrams rolling her way. He'd already managed to corner her earlier in the evening to pitch his new movie to her. Apparently couldn't possibly go ahead with the production without her in the starring role.

Artie had ended up following his dream too and after majoring in Cinema at Denison University, he'd moved to Los Angeles to become a director. The majority of his projects were trashy, ultra low budget fare and his work tended to tread the line between homage and straight up rip-off a little too closely for Quinn's liking. To date the biggest thing he'd done a TV movie for the SyFy channel titled _Octoshark vs. Godzilla_which was just as bad as the title would lead one to believe. Quinn was pretty sure that her agent would have an apoplectic fit if she'd even suggested the idea of working with him. She'd managed to fob him off before with the standard "I'll have my people call your people" line and she really didn't want to sit through another one of his impassioned speeches about how she was just so perfect to play the part of the interstellar dominatrix, Lena Xentra, in his newest project.

Quinn looked for an escape and found it in her dutiful stalker fan, Jeffery. "Hey, Jeffery, aren't you going to be a gentleman and ask me to dance?"

Jeffery perked up, looking like all his Christmases had come at once. "Really?" he squeaked.

Quinn nodded and he shot to his feet, wiped his sweaty palms down the front of his jacket then offered her his hand. "M'lady," he attempted chivalrously. "Would you care do dance?"

"Why thank you, kind sir," Quinn said, taking his hand and allowing herself to be lead to the dance floor and away from Artie, who's feelings she'd hopefully managed to avoid hurting too badly.

#

Jeffery definitely lacked his cousin's dancing feet but he always apologized whenever he stepped on her toes and Quinn was having a fun time regardless.

There was a lull in the music as Mr Schuester came on stage to take the mic over from Mercedes and that's when it happened.

"This is so typical of you, Rachel!" Finn's raised voice could be heard all the way from the bar at the opposite side of the room. Hearing Rachel's name, Quinn immediately turned in that direction and craned her neck in attempt to see over the crowd.

"You're like this... this vampire! Yeah, you're an emotional vampire! You just suck everything that's good out of a person until there's nothing left!" Finn's beratement continued as Quinn excused herself from Jeffery and started pushing her way through shocked onlookers.

Quinn finally managed to reach the bar just as Finn was yelling "Yeah, that's right, just run away like you always do!" and caught a glimpse of Rachel's retreating form as she headed towards the ladies bathroom.

_Figures_ Quinn thought as she moved to follow her, throwing a glare at Finn as she passed him by.

#

Rachel was so focused on fixing her ruined make-up that she didn't even notice when Quinn entered the bathroom.

Quinn was grateful for the opportunity to observe Rachel with her guard down. She was taken aback by how incredibly small and almost fragile, like she'd shatter under the slightest amount of pressure, Rachel appeared. It was like every ounce of self-confidence had been sucked right out of her.

"You know we really have to stop meeting like this."

At the sound of Quinn's voice, Rachel spun around guiltily and plastered a huge smile on her face as she tried her best to look like she hadn't been crying. "Quinn, hi! Wow, you look so beautiful!" she exclaimed, pulling Quinn into a brief hug.

"So do you," Quinn said, returning the compliment. "Where have you been? I've been looking for you all day."

"Oh?" Rachel looked surprised. "I'm sorry, I suppose I may have been keeping a rather low profile," she said, flapping her hand dismissively.

"Because of Finn?"

Rachel flinched and looked down at her feet. "Among other things," she uttered in a low tone.

"Look do you want to get out of here?" Quinn asked, taking pity on her.

Rachel's head shot up and she looked at her inquisitively, unsure of what to make of Quinn's offer.

"We could go somewhere quiet and talk, the party's starting to wind down anyway." That was a lie, Tina hadn't even thrown her bouquet yet. "And you wouldn't have to worry about bumping into Finn again."

Worrying her bottom lip between her teeth, Rachel considered Quinn's offer. If she agreed it meant that she'd have to answer questions, the kind of questions she'd spent the whole day trying to avoid, and to MTV Movie Award Winner Quinn Fabray of all people.

"Okay," she finally assented and Quinn could barely contain her elated smile. Finally she was going to get some answers.

"Okay."


	6. Chapter 6

When Molly Avery clocked on for her evening shift at the Lima Bean the last thing she ever expected that would happen was that her favorite actress in the whole world, Quinn Fabray, would come striding through the doors looking like she'd just stepped off the red carpet.

Her jaw dropped and she involuntarily let out a strangled squeal as she realized that Quinn was heading straight for her. This had to be a dream, she was sure that if she looked down at herself she'd discover that she was suddenly naked and then she'd wake up in a cold sweat.

As soon as Quinn reached the counter, she started rattling off her usual coffee order. "Large extra hot salted caramel latte with double shot of espresso, no foam, made with almond milk, not skim, not soy, not rice, almond milk. Do you need me to write that down for you?"

The starstruck barista rapidly nodded her head. "No, I got it."

Quinn turned to the woman who was fidgeting nervously next to her. "Rach?"

"Just a skinny chai latte, please," Rachel said softly.

"You're Quinn Fabray," Molly managed to squeak out.

_Oh great, a fan._ Quinn smiled graciously. "Yes, I am."

"Oh my God, I know that you must get this all the time but I am a huge fan of yours, I must've seen Cat's Cradle like twenty times."

"Ah, so I have you to thank for the bulk of it's box office takings then," Quinn joked. _Cat's Cradle_ was actually one of the first films Quinn had filmed post-_Black Forest_ but it was so terrible that the studio had kept it on the shelf for nearly three years until they gave it a low-key release two months after the first Among Us movie, hoping to capitalize on Quinn's newfound stardom. Predictably, it had flopped hard making back less than a quarter of it's seven million dollar budget.

Unsure of what to make of the movie star's comment, Molly just giggled. "I know I'm not really supposed to ask this but can I please get your autograph?"

"Of course," Quinn agreed with a friendly smile that she had to fight to keep up as she noticed Rachel's shoulders slump out of the corner of her eye.

The girl eagerly pushed forward her notepad and pen for Quinn to use.

"Who should I make it out to?"

"Molly Avery."

"Oh, you know, I think I went to school with your older sister," Quinn commented as she scrawled a generic message of inspiration and her signature across the paper. "There you go, Molly."

Molly clutched the notepad to her chest and let out an elated squeal. "Thank you so much! Oh my god, I can't believe this is happening."

"My pleasure. Now I'm not going to catch you trying to sell that EBay, am I?"

Molly looked aghast at the very suggestion. "No, I would never," she swore, carefully pulling off the autographed slip of paper and folding it before putting it in her pocket for safekeeping. "I'm not going to let it out of my sight."

Rachel, who had been waiting impatiently throughout the entire exchange, cleared her throat loudly as a pointed reminder for the girl to get back to work. She didn't want to be rude, really she didn't, it's just that Molly's older sister, Gabrielle, had been the first person to ever ask for _her_ autograph. The first and the last.

"Oh, I'll get you your drinks now," Molly said sheepishly and scuttled away.

Quinn just smirked, actually grateful for Rachel's momentary rudeness. They could've been there night. "So you're not a vegan anymore?"

Rachel shook her head. "No, not since I started college."

It simply hadn't been cost effective; organic vegan food was too expensive for their limited budget and with Finn and Kurt being committed animal eaters it just didn't make sense to make two completely separate dishes for every meal.

"Oh."

"I mean, I still try to avoid eating too much meat and obviously I never consume pork products anyway," Rachel explained, sounding more like the girl she used to be than she had in a while. "But I've found that I've become distressingly too reliant on egg and dairy products to revert back to veganism. Though I must admit that I still feel a pang of guilt every time I crack open an egg."

Quinn smiled fondly at her. "I know what you mean. I've tried it a few times but I just don't have the self-discipline to be vegan. I am a vegetarian now though."

"I know."

Quinn's brows furrowed in confusion, she didn't remember having mentioned it to Rachel yet. "You do?"

"You were named the world's sexiest vegetarian celebrity by PETA last year."

"I was?" Quinn vaguely remembered her publicist mentioning something about that but she really hadn't been paying that much attention at the time.

Thankfully, Molly chose that moment to reappear with their order, she set the drinks down on the counter and shot Quinn a shy smile before flitting off to tend to her other customers. Quinn collected both their hot beverages and gestured for Rachel to follow her to a booth at the back of the store which would afford them the most privacy.

"Quinn," Rachel began tentatively as they sat down. "What's it like being famous?"

Quinn was at a loss. She couldn't exactly say that it was horrible because there were a lot of positives to it but she couldn't honestly say that it was amazing either because there were also a lot of negatives. Mostly the positives and negatives balanced each other out but the almost complete loss of privacy definitely tipped the scales.

She finally settled on, "Overrated."

"I'm sure." Rachel let out a surprisingly bitter chuckle. "Did you know, when I was younger I used to think that not being famous was worse than being poor?" she asked, shaking her head in disgust at her younger self. "And now look at me, I'm both."

Quinn saw the opening and decided to go for it. "Rachel-"

And just like that Rachel's mask slipped back into place. "You need to tell me everything about what it's like living in Hollywood," she giddily demanded. "Is Brad Pitt really that good looking in real life?"

Quinn just sighed and resigned herself to the change in topic. "Better."

#

By the time Quinn was pulling her rental car up outside Rachel's house she was frustratingly still no closer to knowing the truth.

Getting Rachel to talk about her life was like getting blood out of a stone, as sure a sign as any that something must have gone terribly, terribly wrong. But once they had become friends -real friends- Quinn had learned very quickly how to handle Rachel Berry and she knew that trying to push Rachel into doing anything would only result in the stubborn girl doing the exact opposite. So she resigned herself to biding her time and hoping that Rachel would reach a place where she'd feel comfortable opening up to her.

She glanced over to the woman sitting silently in the passenger seat, looking deep in not so happy thoughts, and cut the engine.

"You can ask me, you know," Rachel said, keeping her head bowed.

"Ask you what?"

"What everybody else always asks me, everyone who knew me before anyway. You want to know what happened, how I ended up here like this."

"Of course I do."

"Do you want the whole story or the cliff notes version?"

"All of it, I want to hear all of it." Quinn needed to know exactly what went wrong so she could fix it. "I need to."

Rachel nodded solemnly, she hadn't expected anything less. Quinn had always been very detail oriented. She drew in a deep breath and cleared her throat. "Well, as you know, Finn and I moved to New York into a...cozy walk up apartment in Brooklyn. Kurt moved in with us to help save on rent and to prepare for his second attempt at admission to NYADA."

To call that apartment a shoebox would be an overstatement. Despite being advertised as a two bedroom apartment, it turned out to be more like one bedroom and one walk in closet. So the three ended up having to compromise, Kurt would have the bedroom one week while Finn and Rachel slept on the pull out couch and then they'd switch. Needless to say, the situation was hardly ideal.

"Burt and Carole agreed to help out with the rent whenever we needed it as long as we all got jobs to cover our living expenses. Kurt and I were lucky enough get jobs waiting tables at a cafe near our apartment but Finn...he had a little more difficulty."

None of the auto shops he applied at would hire him over workers who were more experienced or had formal training and he refused to apply for any apprenticeships, so that left Finn to try his hand at a number of minimum wage jobs. He was fired from his job delivering pizza on the first day of his trial run after constantly getting hopelessly lost in the big city. Not long after that he got a job waiting tables at a local Italian restaurant but was let go after only a week because he ended up breaking more glassware than his paycheck would cover. After that he went through a long period of unemployment, mostly due to the fact that he was feeling so sorry for himself that he could barely move off the couch to actually look for work.

"Yeah, well, starting out as an actor can be tough." Quinn couldn't believe that she was actually making excuses for Finn but she kind of felt obligated to. She'd heard horror stories from her fellow actors about what they had to do before breaking into the business and she was fully aware of how lucky she was that she'd never really had to struggle like that in her career.

"Oh, no," Rachel giggled. She'd forgotten just how little Quinn knew about the lives of the people she had left behind. "Finn ended up deciding that acting wasn't for him shortly after we arrived in New York."

After his very first audition, in fact, where the casting director had not minced his words when he told Finn that he had all the charisma and sex appeal of a soggy box of Corn Flakes and that if he wanted to be a leading man he was going to have to hit the gym and drop at least 20 pounds, before practically laughing him out of his office. Of course, Finn had never been very good at taking criticism or rejection and as soon as he realized that pursuing a career in acting would be setting himself up for a lifetime of both, that dream quickly died.

"Anyway, Kurt and I were working and going to school and auditioning and taking care of the household chores because Finn's mother used to do everything for him and he'd never learned to do anything for himself." Rachel eyes widened when she realized how bitter that sounded and she rushed to add. "But that's not to say that he was entirely useless. When things broke he fixed them and he put up shelves and he was the only one who could put together the flat pack furniture that Kurt kept buying from Ikea."

Quinn pursed her lips, perturbed, but didn't say a word. If she hadn't known Rachel during their senior year, she'd be angrily questioning the girl's incessant need to defend Finn.

"Things were good. Hard but good. I was doing well at NYADA, I was the first and only freshman to ever win the winter showcase, I had friends." She let out a little self-deprecating laugh. "I was even popular, if you can believe it. But Kurt, he...struggled, coming in during the second semester, and he was convinced that I wasn't doing enough to help him fit in; that created a little friction between us."

As did sharing a bathroom that had nowhere near enough space to store the volume of their combined beauty products.

Quinn couldn't really say she was surprised by what she was hearing. In her eyes, Kurt had always been an entitled little shit; acting like his problems were always so much bigger and more important than everybody else's just because he was gay. No, she still hadn't forgotten about that.

"But it really all blew up just after spring break. Kurt discovered that the Starlight Cabaret Club was auditioning for a new singer for the house band. It still was a new club at the time but very popular among the Broadway crowd and it was a huge opportunity that could've opened a lot of doors. Finn was in between jobs and we really needed the extra income, I just thought that if we both auditioned for it, it would improve our chances."

Quinn whistled through her teeth. "Oh, I bet Kurt loved that." She remembered very clearly that back in high school Kurt's support of Rachel's depended on the condition that she wasn't in direct competition with him.

"Do you remember what it was like when we were both running for senior class president?"

Quinn nodded. She'd been a little distracted by all things Beth at the time but she clearly remembered being rather infuriated by the way Rachel kept trying to pathetically crawl back into Kurt's good graces only to be constantly kicked in the teeth -metaphorically, of course- until she finally gave up on her campaign and endorsed him instead. If Quinn had been in Rachel's shoes, she would've had no regrets about cutting him loose and leaving him to fend for himself.

"It was like that but worse. We lived together, worked together, went to school together; we couldn't really get away from each other and Finn absolutely refused to take sides, which is understandable, Kurt is his brother after all."

Quinn didn't think that was much of an excuse, if it came down to choosing sides between the person she loved and her sibling, she'd choose the person she loved every time. Maybe it was different for brothers. Or maybe Finn was just a coward.

"It all came to a head when I got a callback for it and Kurt missed out. He wanted me to give up my spot for him and I refused. We had a massive fight, hairbrushes were thrown, accusations were made, some very hurtful things were said and he ended up moving out the next day. Do you know what the really sad thing is?"

"All of it?" Oops. Had she just said that out loud?

"I didn't even end up getting the stupid job. It was all for nothing. I tried to apologize but the damage was already done. We haven't said a civil word to each other since."

"You both haven't said a civil word to each other or Kurt hasn't said a civil word to you?" Quinn questioned, arching an eyebrow.

Rachel blushed and looked away without saying anything. She didn't need to. "It was my fault."

"Your fault that Kurt's a spoiled brat?"

"No, he's not," Rachel wearily refuted. "Besides I was the one who ruined any chance that I had of him forgiving me when I split him and Blaine up."

"And how exactly did you manage to do that?"

Rachel fiddled with the hem of her dress nervously. "It was during our sophomore year, Kurt hadn't spoken to me in months but I kept seeing him around campus and he was always with this other boy. They seemed close, you know? Hugging, holding hands and you know how Kurt used to be about public displays of affection, so naturally I just assumed...Finn told me to leave it alone but I didn't listen. I was still in contact with Blaine and during one of our Skype sessions I offered him my commiserations on his break up with Kurt only to discover that he had no idea what I was talking about and that as far as he was concerned, he and Kurt were still very much together."

"So was Kurt actually cheating on him?"

"He said he wasn't but..." she trailed off but the implication was clear. "He actually ended up dumping Blaine for not trusting him. Kurt hasn't been the same since and it's my fault."

"You made a mistake, Rachel," Quinn said gently. "It happens and, at the end of the day, it was Kurt's decision to dump Blaine, not yours. It's not your fault."

Rachel wished that she could believe that was true. "Well in any case, it only served to drive an even bigger wedge between Finn and Kurt as well. Their relationship never really recovered from it."

"Without Kurt's income we struggled a bit financially, so I ended up taking a second job which meant I had less time to go to auditions but that was okay because I decided to focus on my studies. Then in my senior year, I was offered the leading role in a workshop for a new musical called _Paradise Found_."

Quinn perked up in her seat, she knew that show. Hell, she'd seen it twice. The groundbreaking, somewhat risque musical had taken Broadway by storm and swept the Tony awards. It was a well known fact it's producers claimed -more like bragged- that they had kept the same cast from it's inception to it's Broadway debut.

"A friend from NYADA was cast in the leading male role and when they were having trouble finding someone to play opposite him, Brody suggested me for it. I auditioned and got the part on the same day."

"So why is it that Rebecca Greenlee picked up the Tony for it and not you?"

Rachel flinched as though she had been struck. Having to watch the girl who had once been her understudy step up on stage to claim the award that should've -would've- been hers had been one of the darkest moments of her life.

"There was an issue...with Finn," she admitted, just waiting for the 'I told you so' to spill from Quinn's lips. "He didn't want me doing it and it was just a workshop." She shrugged helplessly. "Honestly at that point the show wasn't even that good. Nobody could've predicted what it would become."

Rachel knew that she was being vague but she had good reason to be. Quinn couldn't know the full story, not even her own fathers did. For Finn's sake.

_There was an indisputable pep in Rachel's step as she ascended the stairs to her third floor apartment. The smells coming from the plastic bag full of Thai food she had in hand were heavenly and she couldn't wait to try it. It wasn't often that they splurged on take out but after the breakthrough she'd made in rehearsals today she was in the mood to celebrate._

_Being six weeks into rehearsals for Paradise Found, the director, Mark, decided that it was the perfect time to approach Rachel about making a slight change in one of the scenes, more specifically the scene where her character, Emily, had sex with Brody's character, Lucas. Mark had taken her aside and asked how she felt about going topless. She'd told him that she was committed to her craft and that if the scene demanded it she'd do it but when it came down to actually going through with it she'd frozen and freaked out so badly that she'd ended up fleeing the dance studio on the verge of a panic attack._

_Luckily, Brody had chased after her, catching her before she could get too far and wrapped her up into a comforting hug. He let her cry it out onto his shoulder before wiping away her tears and helping her talk through the problem she was having. He assured her that she was an amazing actress, whether she got her boobs out or not._

_Twenty minutes later, she'd returned to the studio, apologized to the director and crew and ran the scene again, this time she had lost herself in the character of Emily and when it came time for her shirt to come off, she hadn't so much as hesitated. And Mark had been right, it did add an extra layer of vulnerability that had elevated the scene to a whole new level._

_Humming one of the show's original songs to herself, she slipped key into the lock and pushed the door to her apartment open. She was surprised to find it completely dark and seemingly empty. She hoped that Finn hadn't decided to go out and, if he had, that he'd remembered to set the Tivo to record Quinn's episode of NCIS:LA that had aired an hour earlier._

_She blindly groped for the light switch and flicked it on, only to jump in surprise when the illumination revealed that Finn was in fact home and had been sitting on the couch in the dark._

_"Hey, babe, have you already eaten?" Rachel asked, trying to distract herself from her rattled nerves by setting the plastic bag full of food down on the counter and pulling out containers. "I got Thai for dinner."_

_"Do you think I'm stupid?"_

_She spun around at the unexpected question, that's when she noticed the empty beer cans that were littering the coffee table and the floor around Finn's feet. "Finn, have you been drinking?" she asked, clearly concerned for her fiance._

_"I said, do you think I'm stupid?"_

_"What? No, of course I don't."_

_Finn grit his teeth and shook his head in denial. She was lying. "I think you do."_

_"I don't!"_

_"You do!" he shouted, hurling his half empty can at the wall._

_"Finn!" Rachel cried in confusion. She didn't understand what was happening. Things had been fine when she'd left the apartment that morning what could have possibly changed since then? "What's wrong? Why do you think that?"_

_"You know what, maybe I am stupid," he said, ignoring her pleas. "It was stupid of me to try and do something nice for you."_

_"What are you talking about?"_

_"I thought I'd surprise you today, do something romantic by bringing you lunch. I even stopped and got you flowers," he said, looking down at his clenched fists and remembering the way the pathetic three dollar bunch of daisies had crushed so easily in his hands. "So imagine how dumb I felt when I got to the dance studio and saw you and Brody."_

_"I-Finn, it wasn't what it looked like, we were rehearsing," Rachel tried desperately to explain. She couldn't believe that Finn thought that she'd actually cheat on him with Brody. Sure, there had been that moment a few weeks ago when she'd been angry at Finn for refusing to join her on a night out with her friends and she'd let herself get carried away, had a few too many Long Island Iced Tea's and ended up kissing Brody, but that had been a drunken mistake; one that she'd stopped almost just as soon as it had started. Kissing Brody was nice, yes -beyond nice actually, that boy was an amazing kisser- but she **loved** Finn._

_"No, you weren't!" he roared. He kicked over the coffee table as he stood up and started advancing on her. "You weren't even in the studio."_

_When those elevator doors had opened and he was confronted with the sight of Rachel in Brody's arms, looking at Brody the way she used to only look at him, Finn felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest. He stood there frozen, he could do nothing but watch as Rachel leaned her face into Brody's hand as he cupped her cheek. He was just thankful the elevator doors had closed before he could see them kiss. He's sure the sight of that would've killed him._

_Somehow, he'd found himself back on the ground floor and stumbled out of the elevator, feeling like he was going to puke. He angrily stuffed the now crushed flowers and food into the trash on his way out. He'd needed to get out of there, put as much distance as he could between them before he did something he'd regret._

_He'd stopped at the liquor store on the corner on his way home and bought a case of beer. He could do that legally now, in the eyes of the law he was an adult, even though he'd never felt like less of a man._

_Finn didn't even particularly like the taste of beer and he wasn't a big drinker in general but in the movies when the hero had his heart broken the first thing he always seemed to do was get drunk and it seemed to help, so as soon as he was safely inside their apartment, he popped the tab and guzzled the first beer down. He didn't feel any different, he was just as hurt and angry as he'd been five minutes prior, so he cracked open a second can and chugged that one too._

_It wasn't until he was on his fourth can of beer that he started feeling any affect. He slowed down after that, sitting on the pull out couch and robotically taking long swigs. When each can ran empty he'd just replaced it with another. Eventually the hurt started to fade away, leaving him with only anger and the resentment that had started festering inside him sometime back in his senior year of high school._

_He sat and he drank and he thought about how much he hated New York. He hated having to work dead end jobs just to pay the rent. He hated constantly being rejected for better ones because he wasn't experienced enough or hadn't gone to college. He hated seeing Quinn's face in magazines and on the tv and not being able to stop himself from wondering what might have been. He hated the confusing subway system that he still managed to get lost on. He hated that Rachel hadn't touched him in weeks. He hated the rude cab drivers. He hated how expensive everything was. He hated Rachel's NYADA friends who all looked down on him and made no secret of the fact that they didn't understand what she saw in him. He hated that the people here didn't think **he** was good enough for **her**. He hated that the city was so loud and crowded that sometimes he found it hard to breathe._

_He missed his mom and her hugs and her cooking. He missed Burt and Mr. Schue. He missed Kurt. He missed his drum kit. He missed being able to sing in the shower without neighbors complaining through the thin walls about the noise. He missed his dad's armchair. He missed the fresh air. He missed working in Burt's shop. He missed Breadstix. He missed being greeted by name and asked how his mom was whenever he walked into the sporting goods store. He missed his old bed. He missed being able to see the stars at night. He missed the choir room. He missed being Rachel's number one priority. He missed being looked up to rather than being looked down on. He missed Lima so much that sometimes, late at night when Rachel was asleep, he'd lock himself in the bathroom and cry._

_He could've been in the Army, saving lives, protecting his country, making a difference in the world. He could've been cleaning the pools of hot Hollywood MILFs with Puck in LA. He could been working in Burt's tire shop and coming home to a home cooked meal every night._

_But instead he was living in a city he hated and stocking shelves at the local mini-mart for minimum wage. Because of Rachel. Because she was the one good thing in his life, because without her he'd have nothing. Everything he did was for her and she didn't even care._

_They were supposed to be getting married after she graduated in a few weeks and she hadn't even started planning for it, all she ever talked about was that stupid workshop. Now he knew why._

_"Oh, Finn, that's wasn't-" Rachel reached for him, wanting nothing more than to comfort her distraught fiance but found herself pinned against the wall instead._

_"Wasn't what it looked like?" he snarled in her face. His breath reeked of stale beer and it made her feel nauseous. "You tried that already."_

_"I'm telling the truth. There's nothing going on between Brody and I," she said resolutely, trying not to be intimidated. This was Finn; he loved her, he'd never hurt her, they were going to get married after graduation, he was going to be her husband, he wouldn't hurt her._

_"Stop lying to me," he screamed, his fist shooting out and burying itself in the dry wall barely an inch from Rachel's head. Judging by the expression on his face, he was just as shocked as Rachel was by the violent action._

_"Finn," she whimpered, hesitantly reaching for his bloodied hand as he wrenched it back from the hole it had made._

_"Don't touch me." He spat, backing up out of her reach, walking backwards towards the door. He looked at her with such disgust that it just made Rachel cry even harder. "I can't. I can't even be around you right now."_

He'd fled the apartment after that, leaving Rachel scared, confused and worried for his safety. He'd been there when she woke up the next morning, plastering over the hole his fist had made in the dry wall. He'd turned to her with a sheepish smile and apologized for everything that had happened but told her that he just couldn't deal with her doing the show with Brody and that she had to choose.

So she'd quit _Paradise Found_ for the sake of saving her relationship. It was only three weeks later, the day after Rachel had graduated from NYADA, that Finn issued his ultimatum; he was moving back to Lima and if she wanted to be his wife then she'd have to come too. The next day, Rachel's ring finger was bare and Finn was on the next train home.

"Rachel?" Quinn asked, tentatively reaching out and touching her hand, startling her.

Rachel shivered as she was brought out of the memory and swallowed hard, trying to bring back some moisture to her dry mouth. There was a good reason why she avoided thinking too often about that night. "It wasn't long after that that we broke up, Finn moved back to Lima and I was left to fend for myself. After that I started cutting costs where I could to save money, I stopped going out with my friends, I lived off Ramen and tea, I sold everything I could stand to get rid of. I did nothing but work and audition for months, but it turns out that bailing on a production less than a week before it's due to show for investors is the kind of thing that gets you a bad reputation. No casting director would touch me after that. But I didn't give up, I couldn't, even though I could barely make the rent most months. I ended up maxing out all my credit cards, I stupidly took out a loan with a ridiculously high interest rate that there was no way I could make the repayments on-"

"But surely if you needed money that badly your parents would have helped you out." Quinn knew that Hiram and Leroy's support of their daughter was endless, there's nothing that they wouldn't have done for her.

"I'm sure they would have, if they'd known." Rachel wiped at the tear that had gone rolling down her cheek. "At first, I was too proud to ask them for help and then when things got really bad I was just too ashamed that I had let everything get so out of hand."

Her father's had made it clear that they didn't want her living with Finn in New York, they were furious that they'd already paid a large, nonrefundable deposit on a dorm room that was going to go unused. They'd begged her to reconsider and when that hadn't worked they'd put their foot down and told her that they refused going to pay for the apartment too. Rachel had indignantly fired back that she and Finn were adults and could take care of themselves, that she didn't need their money. It was one of the first and only real fights she'd ever had with her parents.

"Then one day I came home and found an eviction notice on my door." That's what happened when you didn't pay the rent for three months straight. "I didn't have much of a choice but to call them. Um, I think I kind of had a breakdown over the phone because the next thing I knew they were there, picking me up off the stairwell in my apartment building. They ended up paying off all my debts and brought me home to Lima, so I could regroup and recuperate. It was only supposed to be temporary...that was six months ago."

And she hadn't so much as sung in the shower since.

"Rachel..."

She hated the way Quinn was looking at her, her beautiful hazel eyes so full of pity and disappointment. "Go ahead, say it. You know you want to."

"Say what?"

"I told you so."

Quinn shook her head. "You really think that little of me, that I'd be that petty?"

"I-no. No. But I deserve to hear it, especially from you." Everyone -Well, mostly everyone- had been so nice about it all, constantly tiptoeing around the subject. Noone ever came right out and said it. Nobody ever confronted her with the reality that if she'd only listened to reason earlier, none of this would have happened.

"No, you don't."

She did. She really did. Quinn had been right. Quinn had always been right, she'd just never wanted to accept it. She'd been a silly little schoolgirl caught up in a fantasy; rejecting and ignoring anything and anyone who threatened to burst her bubble. And now she was paying for her childish mistakes in full. Quinn had done nothing but try to be her friend and she'd just thrown it back in her face.

Rachel was crying in earnest now, tears streaming down her face. "I'm so ashamed of what I let myself become," she choked out. "I was so completely...consumed by Finn that I lost sight of everything that was really important to me. It wasn't supposed to be this way."

"Oh Rachel." Quinn reached out and hugged the sobbing girl the best she could with the center console in the way. "I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault." Rachel sniffled into Quinn's neck.

"But I always knew that something like this would happen. I should've tried harder to get you to break up with him."

"Well at least you managed to stop me from marrying him." It was something that Rachel would forever be grateful for. Her break up with Finn had been messy enough without adding a divorce into the mix.

"Oh yeah, me getting T-boned was all part of my nefarious master plan to stop your wedding."

They both chuckled uncomfortably at the reminder of the horrific car crash that had almost claimed Quinn's life and had ended up leaving her temporarily paralyzed.

"I actually did have a plan, you know," Quinn confessed.

Rachel drew back and looked at her curiously. "Really?"

"Yeah. When I told you that I wanted to come to the wedding to support you, I was lying...I just wanted to be there so I could stand up and object when the time was right." Quinn shrugged. "I figured you might appreciate the drama of it."

"I'm sure I would have," Rachel conceded with a sad smile. "But it wouldn't have stopped me. If anything it would've made me even more determined to go through with it just to prove you wrong." She had been so, so stupid. She could see that now.

"It doesn't have to be this way, you know, you could try again."

"How?" Rachel cried desperately. "I'm broke, Quinn, completely broke. I can't even afford to go to New York for the weekend, let alone live there anymore. And I refuse to be any more of a financial burden on my fathers than I already have been. I just have to accept the fact that I had my shot and I completely blew it."

Now Rachel felt like she knew exactly what Shelby had been talking about as they sat in that empty auditorium, all those years ago. It did feel like a broken promise, it was a hurt that never went away, a wound that would never heal. Even as she almost obsessively kept track of Quinn's career and whenever she learned about yet another of Quinn's successes -a new movie role, a new cosmetics contract, another cover of a magazine- as happy as she was for Quinn, Rachel couldn't help but think _'It should have been me. It was supposed to have been me. Not her.'_ and she hated herself for it.

"No, you don't."

"Yes, I do! I can't afford to live in a fantasy world anymore, Quinn. Look where it's gotten me."

"You can't just give up, Rachel."

Rachel just shook her head. Quinn didn't understand. How could she? Quinn was a movie star, she was famous, she probably got every role she'd ever auditioned for. She didn't know what it was like to be so afraid that you weren't good enough that you couldn't even bring yourself to try out for a part in a community theater production of Wicked.

Quinn had never seen Rachel look so defeated. Not even after she had choked at her NYADA audition. She couldn't stand it for a second longer. "Come back to LA with me."

"What?" Rachel gasped, looking at Quinn like she thought that she'd finally gone off the deep end.

"I want you to come back to LA with me. Look, I know that the plan was always to conquer Broadway first and then transition into film and an HBO mini-series to get your Oscar and Emmy but there is no reason that you can't do it the other way around."

"I can't." Rachel couldn't take the risk of failing again. It would kill her. New York was all about talent and she couldn't make it there, how could she possibly hope to make it in a place as superficial as Hollywood. She should've gotten that nose job; maybe if she were more conventionally attractive, maybe if she'd looked more like Quinn...

"You can," Quinn insisted. "You don't belong here, Rachel, you never have. Please, let me help you."

Rachel shook her head rapidly as she fumbled for the door handle, getting the door open a split second before Quinn could engage the lock. "I'm sorry. It's so nice of you to offer, Quinn, but I can't-" She practically fell out of the vehicle in her desperation to escape the situation.

"Rachel-"

"I can't. I'm so sorry."

She slammed the door and stared back at Quinn with such pain and misery etched on her face, wordlessly begging her to understand, to forgive her, before turning and fleeing up the driveway and into the safety of her parent's house.

Quinn swore and slammed her palms against the steering wheel as she watched Rachel go. She'd known better than to push Rachel too hard but she'd done it anyway and scared her away.

But if Rachel thought that this would be the end of it, that Quinn would just give up and leave her to waste away in Lima for the rest of her life, then she had another thing coming.

#

Bright and early the next morning, Quinn once again found herself parked outside the Berry's home. She needed to make this quick, her flight was due to depart at midday and if she wasn't on it there would be hell to pay from her publicist, who'd set up an interview for her in New York that evening.

She'd spent the night tossing and turning, going over and over what she wanted to say in her head, memorizing it like she would a script, and now it was time to put it into practice.

Her mission was clear and she was determined to make it a success.

She got out of her car and marched up the Berry's front path with a sense of determination she hadn't felt in years. She pressed the doorbell and waited patiently for it to be answered.

The blue door swung open the reveal Leroy, who smiled broadly when he realized who their unexpected visitor was. "Quinn," he greeted her warmly, pulling her into a hug. "It's so good to see you."

Quinn had become somewhat of a permanent fixture in the Berry's home over the summer before the kids went off to college and both men had somewhat fallen in love with her. How could they not? She was polite and respectful yet honest, ambitious, a wonderful dancer, Ivy League bound, she could keep up with Hiram on the piano and Leroy in a discussion about literature. Not to mention they couldn't have been more pleased with the way she seemed to get Rachel focused firmly back on her future goals instead of moping about the house over Finn.

"It's good to see you too, Leroy," Quinn replied. "It's been a while, huh?"

"That it has."

"Who is it?" Hiram yelled from another room.

"Honey, there's a movie star on our doorstep," Leroy called back, winking mischievously at Quinn.

"Is it Hugh Jackman?" Hiram gasped, abandoning his crossword and bolting out of the living room. "Did he get my letters?"

"Not quite," said Quinn as he skidded to a halt before her. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Not at all," Hiram said, wrapping her up in a bear hug that swept her clean off her feet. "I heard you were back in town, it's all anyone can talk about."

"Gotta love the Lima gossip network," Quinn remarked once she had both feet firmly back on the ground. So Rachel hadn't mentioned their meeting to her parents? Huh.

"I was hoping you'd have time to come and visit us while you were here, although I'm afraid you just missed Rachel."

"That's okay," Quinn said. It actually worked out perfectly for her plan. "I can't stay long and I actually wanted to speak to the two of you in private,"

"Oh?" Leroy's curiosity was peaked. "What about?"

"Let's just say that I have a proposition for you that I think you'll both find very interesting."


End file.
